And then Twitter took off in a big way, it seemed like everyone had jumped on the Twitter band wagon, from shoe companies to celebrities to your next door neighbour. But after the first couple of months, I discovered that Twitter’s business value was negligible.

Remember Cuil’s launch? Remember Wolfram Alpha? Yeah, neither does anyone else – and Twitter may be only marginally more memorable in a couple of years. Ok, right now every blog post that offers the option to Sphinn, Digg, Like and offers the option to Retweet. Then again, remember when Alta Vista was the big kahune in the online world? I predict that in five years, Twitter will go the way of the digital watch – lots of people may have one, but, ya know…who cares.

So what happened to relegate this explosive technology to the annals of history in the future?

Functionality
It has none! I’ve never seen so many people use such nonfunctional software and get so excited about it. The amount of time that I’ve signed in and found out that Twitter is down is disproportionate to the extreme. And thus were born Tweetdeck and Seesmic and a whole slew of platforms dedicated solely to tweeting. Amazing. Something the good folks at Twitter should consider – if you really want it to take off long-term, make sure that it’s usable. Maybe some small-time high tech tycoons are using it, and maybe even some tech-savvy businessmen. And maybe some SEO geek is bantering happily with his SEO geek buddy on Twitter. (Like me.) But just try and get Warren Buffet to tweet. Just try.

Fraudulent accounts
No, I’m not talking about spam here. Do you know how long it took me to find Stephen Colbert’s real Twitter account? A long, long time. Days. And in internet speak, that’s quite a while. So why would any reputable business want to use a platform that can so easily be used to damage its reputation? That, my friends, is a double-edged sword if I ever saw one.

Spam
Ok, now I’m talking about spam. There are five gadzillion spammy Twitter accounts out there. Given that only people who follow you will see what you have to say (with the unlikely exception that your tweet gets randomly retweeted), and given that if you have enough followers to constitute a solid constituency, a good third of them will be spammers/fake accounts, then what value is Twitter really providing as a marketing platform?

Even if you did build a decent size following on Twitter, users need to be active to see your messages, and these stats may be another telling factor in why most of your followers may never even notice:

Source: informationisbeautiful.net

Unfortunately, since Twitter is all the rage lately, many small business owners get caught up in the hype, jumping in without a plan of action, actually believe that spending a lot of time “connecting” online will result in a big increase in awareness and sales. This is the problem, especially with Twitter, because it can become a thief that steals time from effective marketing practices. “Effective” meaning strategies that are known to result in sales.

The irony is that this particular blog post was an inspired tactical SEO maneuver and an outrageously obvious piece of link bait.  (And yes, that was correct usage of the word “irony”.)  A storm of responses arose from the indignant and very legitimate SEOs of the likes of Danny Sullivan and Peter da Vanzo, all righteously blasting Powazek and defending what SEOs do and why they do it.  In a very clear and concise manner, I might add, which completely ripped Powazek’s blog post to shreds.  Go team SEO!

Putting Powazek’s pseudo-intellectualism aside, however, the man does make an excellent point.  There are many “SEOs” out there who are…how shall I put this…complete and utter crap.  And spew complete and utter crap in the form of a marketing pitch so that you will buy into their ability to make your site perform and pay off for all of the time and money that you have invested in it.  And of course, them.

On the flip side there are some excellent and very earnest SEOs out there who do their job and do it well.  Who really know their stuff, and who get excited when your site performs because it reflects well on them and their abilities.  The question is, how do you as an uninformed potential consumer tell the difference?

• Transparency
  • Real SEOs aren’t interested in smoke and mirrors.  Fact: you’re paying them for their expertise.  If you could do it, you would.  Anyone CAN learn SEO – the reason that you’re paying someone to do SEO for you is because you’re not interested or because it’s not worth your time.  So a real SEO will have no problem being quite clear about exactly what he or she is doing, and answering all of your questions patiently.  Scammers and spammers, however, will try to dodge questions and use oblique and evasive terminology that will confuse you enough to think that they know what they’re talking about.
• Promises
  • Rule numero uno of SEO: Never.  Promise.  Anything.  Ever.  SEO is evolutionary to the extreme – Google needs to constantly and consistently update its algorithm to keep ahead of spammers so that they are serving relevant and useful results to users.  Therefore, SEO methodologies likewise need to constantly and consistently shift in order to keep up with the Googles.  Which means that a website ranking because it utilizes a specific factor may drop in rankings tomorrow because the importance of that factor has been drastically reduced. Anyone claiming that they can guarantee a number one space for your site for competitive keywords is flat out lying.  An SEO who can provide long-term results will use language such as “should” and “attempt”.  It sounds counter-intuitive to hire someone who is specifically NOT guaranteeing results, but in this particular instance it’s the best way to go.
• References/portfolio
  • This may seem like business 101, but I’m saying it anyway.  To be fair, many times an SEO will need to sign an NDA with his or her clients. That’s fine.  If such is the case, he or she should be able to provide two to three professional references in lieu of a portfolio.

Of course, my ultimate fail-safe recommendation to not get scammed by SEO scammers is to just learn a bit about the industry yourself.  I would recommend Google Webmaster Central and Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.  Barring that, use the above-mentioned tips, and be skeptical. And never, ever be afraid to ask questions.

He had this to say in his article entitled “Who Else Wants More Money From Their Landing Pages?“:

You should set your ego aside, and recognize that most new users who come to your website, have a “bad” or “I’m busy” attitude. If you can generate relevant pages that try to answer their problems quickly (“the 5 second rule to action”) – you are on your way. The 5-second rule (or less) must engage the user to do something on your site.

Look to overcome this user psychology and test your pages against them:

“I’d like to buy, but:
Can I trust you? If so, prove it!
Are others buying from you? If so, show me!
Are you going to be around if I buy from you?
Is this all too good to be true?”

Those 5 small lines really do encapsulate exactly what I have been trying to explain to you, just in a shorter version.

If you can answer these questions powerfully, you’re on the road to increased sales!

If not, then it’s back to the drawing board until you can.

If you’d like your own customised consultation from one of our highly experienced Search Engine Marketing Consultants, call us on (08) 9361 9534 or complete the Contact Us form and we’ll get back in touch with you as soon as possible.

Understand this: Trust relies on a lot more than just big dollars to spend on a branding campaign and a huge multi-national firm behind it all.

Instead, it relies on answering the (often) unspoken fears of potential customers visiting your website.

So, here’s just a few simple ideas to get your creative juices flowing. There are lots more things that can be done, but these are the easier ones that anyone can implement:

1) Provide plenty of information on your website to show visitors that your company (and staff) are real. Make sure you have a Contact Us page with your full physical address (not just a Post Office box number), 1 or more phone numbers, and an email address (or form they can complete to send you a message) as a MINIMUM. Verifiable company address details are always helpful in building trust, because they allow a potential customer to research you in the Yellow or White Pages and so forth. (or on Google Maps)

2) If practical, I always recommend including photographs of your office building, both outside and inside shots, as these show the real business.

3) Have photographs and a brief bio of some of your key staff. If you’re a small business (say, less than 10 people), profile all of your staff with a current photo and Bio. If you’re too large for that, then profile your key management personal in the same way.

4) Any publically available legal items like an ABN, Tax Number or Company Registration number (and so forth) that can be independently verified should be listed on your site in plain view. Don’t make your site visitor dig down through 10 levels to find some obscure hidden page in your site with this information listed on it. Put it in the footer of every page, or prominently display it on your Contact Us or About Us page.

5) If your firm has any sort of Government and/or Industry accredited rating for something that you do, prominently display the appropriate logos on your website. As an example, one of our clients The Best of The Kimberley – www.kimberleytravel.com.au – is Accredited as an Australian Tourism business by the Australian Tourism Accreditation Board. This tells the visitor that their site has had to jump through certain hoops to achieve this rating, which says they are a professional operation.

6) Place a Contact Phone number at the top of all of your site’s pages – make it large and obvious, with text included that says something like: “Need Help? Call 1800-555-555″, or “Questions? Call us Toll Free on 1800-555-555″. If appropriate, also list your hours of operation next to the number so visitors know when they can call for help.

7) Add a Live Chat service to your site, with a prominently displayed logo inviting site visitors to click on the link for help. Companies such as LivePerson offer an excellent service that allows even the smallest of companies to provide Chat Support on their website/s. These sort of services have been proven to increase sales conversion on websites!

8) Guarantees, guarantees, guarantees! In short, what kind of guarantee do you offer prospective clients to build trust in you? If your product/s are very good quality or your service/s are liked and appreciated by current clients, then why not Guarantee a result for prospective new clients as a way to reassure them that you can and will fulfil on your promises to them.

A quick tip for this one: guarantee a specific result (and if appropriate) within a specific timeframe, rather than just a satisfaction guarantee. Of course, a satisfaction guarantee is going to be a lot more appropriate for some types of businesses than others, so be flexible, depending on what you sell.

A strong guarantee has been proven to increase sales conversions, and as long as you actually offer a good product and/or service, your refund requests will still be low, but your conversion to a sale will definitely go up!

Lastly, promote your guarantee Prominently on your website. Make it blindingly obvious to any random visitor that you do offer a guarantee, and lay out any specific terms and conditions clearly so that there is no confusion about what you will and won’t agree to.

9) The last “secret” is that of independent proof of your security and legitimacy. In plain English, this means showing proof to prospective clients that you are a real business, registered with the BBB (for example) and that you take the security of their Identity and Credit Card information very seriously.

Some of the firms who provide assistance in this sort of field include:

McAfee Secure : the world’s most viewed web site security trustmark
BBBOnLine : the Better Business Bureau’s Online Reliability program for members
TRUSTe : proof that you protect clients’ privacy

These are just some of the many similar programs/services offered to online businesses, and may vary from country to country and even industry to industry. You can do some research on these sorts of programs through Google if you want to know more about how they work and what they offer.

Be aware that none of these services are usually free, but, if they increase conversion enough, they will often pay for themselves very quickly. Think of them as an investment in your success, rather than a cost or overhead.

OK, well there’s a number of different ways you can increase Sales Conversion on your website. One or more of them will be suitable for you. Now, all that’s left for you to do is start discussing how you’re going to implement these “secrets” on your website with your Web Designer.

Yet, scarily enough, this obvious fact seems to be not so obvious to web design firms or their clients.

Why spend even $1 on a website, let alone the $5000, even $20,000 and upwards price tags that most web design firms charge for your shiney new site, without making sure that your site can and will sell?

A large part of the issue is ego and design mentality. Every business owner or manager who makes a decision to actually spend the money on having a site designed wants their site to look good! In fact, in most cases, they are too focused on how the site looks, as apposed to how it performs.

That way, their friends, family and colleagues will be blown away with how hot and sexy it looks. They’ll get lots of compliments and positive feedback from all these people about the site, which obviously gives our decision maker lots of warm fuzzy feelings about their decision to go with this site design.

The thinking process also goes something like this:

“I love the site, all my staff love the site, and all my friends and family love the site, therefore visitors to the site will love it so much that they will buy (because they are super-impressed?).”

But in the real world, that only works for flashy fashion items (and the people who are susceptible to that kind of prestige marketing) glitzy jewellry and new cars! Even then, it still doesn’t work all the time. Just because you see a gorgeous diamond ring in the Jewellers that you just love, does not automatically mean you will buy it.

As an example, let’s say you were buying a simple book from a website – a book you could buy at any number of other book sites and physical book stores. Is the potential client buying a (i) book or a (ii) spiffy looking website?

Is the spiffy looking website the # 1 consideration in a potential client’s mind when they make a decision to buy that book from you? The answer is obviously no. Case in point, Amazon is not the best looking website in the world, but it sales speak for themselves.

The 2nd part of this deadly combination is the “design mentality”, which is mostly squarely in the hands of the web designer and/or some graphics/artistic type in the client’s employ.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not bashing web designers here. They are an integral part of the overall process of getting a website up and running and making it look modern and professional.

However, the key missing element here is the fact that designers, by their very nature (that which draws them to this line of work) are way more interested visual issues than they are in the #1 skill required to sell: an understanding of people and their fears, desires, concerns and other such issues that impact whether a sale happens or not.

Selling has an entirely different set of imperatives than design, and when the two do not integrate well, you have a pretty website that fails to capture the attention of a prospective client enough for them to actually take the big step of making a purchase.

So, to try and trim down what is an incredibly complex and large topic, the biggest barrier to making sales from a website are when the sales process and psychology is ignored in preference to creating a gorgeous looking website.

Oh, this assumes that the purpose of the site is to sell a product or service, or at least to generate a sales lead/enquiry, which can then be followed up with and hopefully turned into a sale down the track. I am not referring to sites that have been deliberately created to just give information or provide support, etc.

Also, I hasten to add that not all web design firms think like this. Few actually do understand that a site design must mix form, functionality and persuasiveness.

So having identified the problem, what can and should we do next? We offer some advice in our articles;  Sales Conversion Secrets Of The Worlds Best Websites and The Psychology of Sales Conversion.

As a business owner, would you set strict guidelines for your sales staff that they were only allowed to say 10, 20, or even 50 words (maximum) to a prospective client before they ask for the sale?

Of course not! You’d think that was stupid, wouldn’t you?

Yet, time and time again, I see websites that are trying to sell something (whether it’s a product or service is immaterial) that do just this.

Let me explain…

If you have a page on your site “selling” the virtues of a specific product or service that you offer, and you only have a small description of that product or service (say… ‘10, 20, or even 50 words‘), then guess what; You just instructed your website to sell in a way in which you would consider it totally foolish to sell in person.

You see, for some strange reason, many people have got caught up in the belief that “less is more” and it’s more stylish to have minimalist text content on your website.

Lets be totally clear about 1 thing here:

Visitors to your website will not buy if they don’t know/trust you and don’t have enough information to make a quality decision.

There are so many choices available for just about any product/service available for sale on the open market today for a potential customer to take a risk on an unknown quantity, and a small sales blurb is almost (99.99% likely) guaranteed to not overcome the risk concerns of that potential buyer.

Even if they were looking to buy a well known product with great brand recognition and market reputation (such as an Apple iPod, for example), they’d still need to know that the people behind your website were trustworthy enough to give their credit card details to, in order to purchase from you.

If I had a website selling iPods, not only would I ensure that every single product had a comprehensive description of its features, functions and benefits, but I’d also ensure that I did everything I could (with text, images and even audio/video, if available) to build trust with the site visitor, so that they felt safe buying from my website.

Just as a side note, the other major advantage of including plenty of descriptive text with each product description is that it creates good SEO keyword relevence for that product/page.

If we went back to the example of selling iPods, not only should I have the full product name in the title (ex. Apple iPod Touch 8GB), but the full description of that product, including dimensions, colour/s, options and features/functions.

The more on-topic descriptive text, the better, from an SEO point of view.

Anyway, back to selling online…

If you want to get the very best sales conversions from your website, then you need to actually sell!

That means clearly explaining what the product/service is, how it works, what benefits it offers a prospective buyer, and (perhaps most importantly) why they should buy from you, when there are so many other choices available to them.

If you wouldn’t limit your sales people to 10-20 words to make a sale, then why on earth would you inflict this on your website, which can and does make sales for you, even when you’re asleep?

I’m guessing that one reason (aside from ignorance) that site owners do this is because they either don’t know what to write or it’s too much work to write 100, 200, 500 (or more, as required) words to help sell their product or service.

If this is a challenge for you, then try recording your best sales person making a live sales presentation for that product/service and have the audio transcribed, and then edit it for appropriateness and use that text content on your website.

Also, consider hiring a professional copywriter who has experience selling in print, and get them to write your product/service descriptions and sales spiel.

Yes, it will cost more and take longer, but at the end of the day, it will make sales a hell of a lot better than the brief 10-20 word description you originally used, you’ll notice the difference in your bottom line.

If you view a first purchase from a new client as the START of a great relationship, and maintain contact with that client in a positive, helpful respectful way, over time that client will make more purchases from you and/or will refer new contacts to you.

The problem is, keeping in contact with clients can be expensive and time consuming.

Whether you print & post a newsletter or physical catalog (like Dick Smith does), or fax out regular specials, it costs a fair bit of money, especially if you do it as regularly (which you should!)

The reality is that this is a MAJOR reason why many businesses don’t maintain ongoing communication with their clients – the cost factor.

The other reason is time – they often don’t feel they have time to do this, what with all their daily tasks that always seem urgent.

Have you ever wondered if there was a way to bypass both these limitations, so that you CAN keep in touch with clients at a low cost and with minimal time expenditure?

If so, then here’s the good news:

These days, one of the most cost effective methods of maintaining contact with clients is via email. Essentially each message costs nothing to send – you just need a system in place to set up and manage it all. Creation of client database, planning the messages you’ll send, sending those messages, monitoring results, and keep going until they buy, die or quit.

And the time issue can be overcome by outsourcing the workload to someone else, only leaving you to figure out what you want to say to your clients with each message.

Whether you send them upcoming special offers (or discount vouchers), or just tell them a fun story about something that happened at your work or gave suggestions for getting the best out of the product they purchased off you originally, you will still be adding value to their life, which will ultimately turn into repeat business.

You can develop your own email database system to keep in contact with clients for a fairly low cost, but you need to have the time and expertise to make it work.

Also, there are legal issues you NEED to be aware of when heading down this path. It’s so easy to get into trouble for spamming, and the legal penalties for that are severe these days.

Yes, you can pop everyone’s email address into your Outlook address book & do a manual send every now and then, but what happens when you accidently cross the line and get reported by someone having a bad hair day?

As the old saying goes, ignorance of the law is NOT an excuse!

Also, here is a warning to those who think that they can do all this using their standard email software or service (Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, GMail etc)…

…don’t underestimate how complex the management of an effective follow-up email campaign can be. For a moment, imagine you have 2,000 hot prospects, and each of those people are at a different point in your “7 stage” selling process. That’s an unbelievable 14,000 different personalized emails that you must send out EXACTLY on time to exactly the right people.

Imagine how difficult it would be to manage this manually? It’s simply impossible. So, rather than drive yourself crazy trying to do this manually, why not outsource the whole process to someone else who KNOWS what they’re doing?

We’ll set up the database for you, ensure it’s all legal and above board, provide tools & coaching to help you get clients to sign up for your mailing list, send the emails for you and report on their progress. All you have to do is supply the content we send out in each email in text/html format.

Something else to consider, while we’re on this path. Yes, building a list of your clients should be priority #1, but don’t forget your prospects – the lookers, the tyre kickers, the maybes…

Each of these people are not ready to buy now, for whatever reason, so rather than lose them forever, why not give them a great reason to sign up to your newsletter or special offers program and you’ll be able to keep in contact with them for as long as they’re willing to let you email them.

You’ll find that if you send them fun, interesting, informative and valuable information, at some stage some of them will turn into paying customers, simply because they have grown to know and trust you and the time (or offer) is right for them.

Ideally, you should separate your mailing lists so that only clients are in one and “prospects” are in the other.

Treat your clients as SPECIAL – more important than prospective clients. Give them the best price breaks and deals, the best service and make them feel like they truly matter to you. In return, they’ll buy regularly from you AND refer people they know as well!

Superstar US Marketer Dan Kennedy even has “Customer Appreciation Days” for his clients, where he throws a party and invites them all for free, just to show his appreciation for their continued loyalty and business. Given Dan’s amazing success in business, do you think this strategy might have something to do with his success?

Of course it does!

Now, email follow-up marketing just possibly might not be appropriate in some businesses, depending on the circumstances. However, feel free to discuss it with us if you’re not sure whether it would suit your situation or not.

Lastly, if you have a website for your business, you should add a sign-up or registration form to your site, encouraging visitors to signup to your newsletter or special offers program. That way, you don’t waste site visitors AND you can be growing your database hands-off 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!

If you don’t have your own website to provide the form allowing clients to register, we can provide a simple 1 page online form for your use.

For more information on our Email Marketing Packages, ring us on (08) 9361-9534 or check out our Email Marketing website.

As I mentioned in my previous post, setting up a successful AdWords ad campaign isn’t as simple as just stuffing a few “relevent” keywords into an adgroup, writing an ad and putting a bid amount on the keywords and turning it all on.

Chances are, if you’ve ever dabbled with AdWords before and done this (as most beginners do), you had a pretty poor result.

Either your ads didn’t show up often, or they didn’t get clicked much, OR (even worse) you got lots of clicks but very few of them turned into a sale or a lead.

So, one of the pieces of the puzzle is the landing page, and I thought I’d make a few comments about them, since we are (once again) designing landing pages for clients who have NO IDEA about how to make this work properly – which is NOT their fault. We’re the adwords specialists, not them, which is why they came to us for help!

1) A landing page MUST be very on-topic for the keywords and ad copy you are focussing on in your ad group.

If you’re targetting wines, then pick a single product (eg. Shiraz or Riesling), create an adgroup with keywords ONLY on that topic in them, and write ads that ONLY discuss that particular wine.

Finally, you want to send visitors to a landing page that ONLY discusses that particular wine. NOT to your home page or a general shopping cart page.

If it’s Shiraz, then send them to a landing page that promotes the virtues of your Shiraz wine ONLY! (example link below…)

Don’t confuse the issue by having 3-6 other wines featured on the same page. If you offer too many choices, you’ll not only confuse the visitor, but you’ll also increase the risk that they’ll get distracted and start wandering around your site until they get bored and leave, having done nothing.

If necessary, create a stripped down version of your “normal” site pages – one where you remove ALL unnecessary links, graphics and content – and JUST focus on the topic of that 1 product or service. You will be surprised at how much more effective your results will be, compared to sending them to a generic page.

2) One of the bigger reasons for creating a custom landing page is to improve your Adwords Quality Score. To borrow from Google’s own help center discussion on the topic, here’s the most important point about QS:

Quality Score influences your ads’ position on Google and the Google Network. It also partly determines your keywords’ minimum bids. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the better your ad position and the lower your minimum bids.

The most important takeaway for you is to know that Quality score influences both your ad’s position AND it’s keyword minimum bids. In other words, if you have a high quality score for certain keywords, your ad clicks will cost less than your competitors AND rank higher, all at the same time.

It should (?) be fairly obvious that high rankings and low costs for your keywords is a HIGHLY desireable situation and the landing page is all part of this “magical” formula.

So, why does a good landing page improve QS?

Simple really. A good landing page is HIGHLY relevent to the search that that person on Google made, and is most likely to answer the “question” they had in their mind when they initially made that search and clicked on your ad.

In simple terms, if Joe Blow was searching using this key phrase ‘buy west australian shiraz,’ and your ad popped up, and they clicked through and landed on your West Australian shiraz landing page, and subsequently made a purchase, that’s the IDEAL outcome from both Google AND the searcher’s point of view. Hence, Google will improve the Quality Score of the keyword that triggered that search, in conjunction with the landing page that helped facilitate it.

Google has some general guidelines about landing page (and site) quality here: landing page quality

3) A key factor in improving landing page quality is relevence. Google has this to say about relevence:

• Users should be able to easily find what your ad promises.
• Link to the page on your site that provides the most useful information about the product or service in your ad. For instance, direct users to the page where they can buy the advertised product, rather than to a page with a description of several products.

If your keywords which lead to your ad which leads to your landing page does not have relevence with each other, you’re giving the searcher a “bad experience” and Google can and will penalise you for that.

I’ve often heard this described as “message to market match,” and if the entire path from start to finish doesn’t stay relevent and congruent, you’re in trouble! Hence the need for creating individual landing pages, rather than going down the lazy (or ignorant) path of just sending everything to the home page or the shopping cart “home” page.

4) The above mentioned Google page that discusses landing page quality also mentions originality. The main reason behind this is to ensure that your site is not just a copy of everybody else’s when it comes to discussing your offerings.

Google tends to frown on “duplicate content” (to some extent), and it’s not uncommon for some adwords advertisers (especially those targetting affiliate commissions rather than advertising and selling their own unique products/services) to re-use content from somewhere else to explain their product on the landing page/s.

There’s nothing wrong with promoting someone else’s products (whether you are an affiliate, reseller or retailer), but Google likes to see SOME unique content explaining the virtues of the product, over and above what the manufacturer supplies.

If you’re selling iPods (for example), then don’t just copy Apple’s iPod product info page into your shopping cart product description field. Yes, use what they have, BUT enhance it by adding additional commentary and suggestions to help the searcher make a more-informed choice. That way, you’re adding value, which enhances the end-user’s experience (which makes google look good, which is what they want!)

5) The last point on improving the effect of your landing pages for Adwords is the load time of the page. Google very recently introduced a penalty for landing pages which load slowly – once again, it’s all about whether the user’s experience on your site reflects positively or negatively on Google as a search engine.

You can read Google’s comments on landing page load times to get an idea of what they want and expect.

Keep the massive graphics, unnecessary flash files, pop-ups/unders/overs and so forth to a bare minimum, and ensure your webmaster does a little “performance enhancing” of your web server, to keep speed up and delays down.

In closing, perhaps you’re starting to get a feel for the key underlining message of this post. That is, in order to get great results from Google AdWords, you need to keep google’s wants foremost in your mind with everything you do.

Google relies on its accuracy and effectiveness as a search engine to keep people coming back and using it. Without its massive popularity, their AdWords program would not earn them billions of dollars a year. So, everything THEY do is driven by the desire to give the “client” (the searcher) the absolute BEST experience when using Google to search.

If you, as an AdWords advertiser, are giving their clients a POOR experience, they WILL penalise you, because it’s people like you who make them look bad (no offence intended with that statement), which would reduce their popularity, which would reduce their ability to attract advertisers from all over the world.

No one advertiser is important enough to Google (in terms of how much they spend per month with AdWords) that they will put their entire reputation as the best search engine on the planet at risk. Even if you spend $1 million per year, you have to understand that, while they value you as an important paying client, you’re just one of 100s if not 1000s who spend that sort of money, and if you bring them and their search engine into disrepute, they’d rather lose your business than suffer the poor impression it gives the general public.

It might sound pretty harsh, but it makes perfect sense when you look at it from a business point of view. AND, the best part of all this is that you just have to follow Google’s rules and you will be rewarded with better results than those who don’t. Your ads will rank higher and your clicks will be cheaper than your competitors, and really – that’s what you want as an AdWords advertiser, right?

If you need help designing and testing high quality landing pages for your AdWords campaigns, please just complete the Contact Us form on our WCR Internet Marketing site and we’ll get back in touch with you as soon as possible. Be sure to note in the comments or enquiries field that you’re interested in an AdWords landing page consult.

One of our main business offerings is Google AdWords consulting and management services. We manage close to $1,000,000.00 worth of adspend per year through Google for various clients, so I thought it would be worthwhile giving you a quick overview of what I consider best practises for a successful AdWords campaign. Hopefully, you can get a feel for all the steps we have to go through for a client in order to achieve a positive result when it comes to adwords.

1) You can’t fix/improve what you can’t measure There must have some sort of analytics system on the site (whether WCR stats or Google Analytics). The tracking code should be on every page as a general rule.

2) What is the client’s “Most Wanted Result” (MWR) from Adwords? Is the client looking to make sales directly on the site from adwords, or capture an email address (sign up for a newsletter, for example), or the completion of a form asking for more information, etc.

Each one of these results has their own unique requirements (in terms of implementation, etc.) so we (and the client) need to be VERY clear as to what we are hoping to achieve.

3) Once we know the MWR (and analytics has been added to the site), we have to set up conversion tracking. Conversion tracking allows us to measure ROI (Return on Investment). It also allows us to measure success of individual ad copy, keywords, landing page design, etc.

Without this, we have NO WAY of knowing if what we’re doing is working or not, and whether it’s profitable or not.

4) Test and Measure. (requires analytics + conversion tracking). ALL results can be improved with better words, graphics, layout, offers, etc. Never assume your first effort is the best.

ALWAYS create a minimum of 2 ads per adgroup, testing them against each other to find which one performs better. Once you have a winner, ditch the loser and create a new test ad to compete against the winner. This is called “beating the control”, where the winning ad is the “control” – or the yardstick against which we measure other ads performance.

Google Website Optimizer (multivariant) testing can be very helpful in measuring multiple components to find the best combination, when you have high enough traffic to justify using it.

5) Build tightly focussed adgroups targetting tightly focussed landing pages, and minimize distractions. If we use a winery client as an example, 1 adgroup should ONLY contain keywords about shiraz wine, and the ad copy should ONLY discuss shiraz wine, and the landing page should ONLY pitch shiraz wine.

Don’t bundle everything into 1 big adgroup and point the ads at the home page of the site. Your quality score will nosedive, your ad costs will skyrocket, and you won’t get high ranked ads unless you pay lots more than those ads ranking above you.

This is a BIG ONE. Most clients (and web designers) do this in reverse, so we have to gently educate them on the necessity of tightly focussing our efforts. Often, this will require new landing pages, etc.

6) Make your landing pages convert. Remove as many unnecessary links on the page as possible (less distraction). Make a strong call to action (buy now, add to shopping cart, etc) with a prominent link or button (see Amazon.com for some excellent examples). Use clear quality graphics where possible. This might seem obvious, but it’s often forgotten by the client in their web design. They create a pretty site but forget to “stock it” with persuasive copy and images.

Remember the golden rule: WIIFM

W = What’s
I = In
I = It
F = For
M = Me

That’s what every visitor to your client’s site is thinking when they are browsing. If they don’t see any compelling reasons to move ahead with a purchase (or submitting an enquiry, etc), then you’ve lost them.

Explain the offer clearly, clarify any confusing areas, make a compelling offer, give them reasons to buy from YOU (rather than all the alternatives out there) and make it safe for them (strong guarantee). Write clearly and persuasively. Give strong reasons to buy.

Explain the features and ALSO how each of those is a benefit to them. Learn more here

Where available, use client testimonials.

For more info on online sales conversion and persuasion, read the previous posts I added to this blog:

Selling Online vs Selling Offline
Does Your Website Sell?
The Forgotten Dynamics Of Buying and Selling Online
The Top 10 Sales Conversion Secrets Of The Best Websites In The World
The Psychology of Sales Conversion

If you have any more questions, or would like to discuss whether we can help you with your AdWords needs, please just complete the Contact Us form on our WCR Internet Marketing site and we’ll get back in touch with you as soon as possible. Be sure to note in the comments or enquiries field that you’re interested in an AdWords consult.